Atlanta Public Schools Report: “Devastating”

With a press conference expected with the Governor at 11am, the AJC has released details of the investigation into widespread cheating at Atlanta Public Schools. Some of their details:

In a report that Gov. Nathan Deal planned to release today, the investigators name nearly 180 educators, including more than three dozen principals, as participants in cheating on state curriculum tests, officials said over the weekend. The investigators obtained scores of confessions.

The findings suggest the national accolades that Hall and the school system have collected — and the much-vaunted academic progress for which she claimed credit — were based on falsehoods. Raising test scores apparently became a higher priority than conducting the district’s business in an ethical manner.

The APS Board Chair has described the report as “devastating”.

At one point, according to the AJC article, 50 of the state’s 240 GBI investigators were working the investigation. My public school math tells me that’s more than 20% of the entire GBI.

The investigtion report will show that the problem was widespread and institutional, dating back a decade or more. Also likely, felony charges. It is a crime punishable up to 10 years to alter or destroy public documents. It’s also a crime to lie to investigators. It is believed a significant amount of each has occurred. As we often say, more details to come.

Let’s see, we tie pay and funding to these standardized test scores and wonder why the administrators learned to work the system? We teach kids only enough to pass the standardized test, and to remember it only for the day of the test.

What happened to education that teaches children to put ideas together, think creatively, problem solve, work together and use information learned from all subjects?